In the lease, can you reserve the right to sue the tenant for any loss it seems that they have caused, like fire or other damage, something that goes past the amount of the security deposit?

In addition to what Ned mentioned, you will also have advertising, entity maintenance, legal fees, evictions, court costs, periods of high vacancy, damage done by tenants (in excess of the security deposit), lawsuits, utilities (at least during vacancies), etc, etc, etc.

There is another California law that applies to any company that offers advice or assistance to consumers in credit related transactions – called CSO’s – for unsecured or secured loans.

Has anyone secured equity from a hedge fund?

For example, significant damage done by tenants in excess of the security deposit (often thousands of dollars), is an expense that may only occur once in a many years.

I'm very secure knowing that my house won't be losing value any time soon.As an aside, I will note that the few RE investments I have made are not out here and I would never buy a rental out here - there's absolutely no way to cash flow it.

Or, some sort of personal loan or a loan secured by some other collateral. 10% would be very good on a fix and flip loan based on ARV.

In some states, it is against the law to collect more than a couple month's rent, so you have to check into that.I automatically turn down any applicant who wants to pay a year in advance.For an existing tenant who has been a good tenant, I would take the money, put it into escrow and pay myself month by month as it came due.Tentant would still be on a month to month agreement and if I wanted him out, I'd give 30 day notice and refund the balance of the rent.An exception: If I rented to college students, they sometimes pay the entire semester's rent out of their grant money.

Hopefully a quick judgement from a Texas court and a lien on the property to secure the judgement might be the best way to see my deposit again from these guys.

Granted I haven't done this for too long and don't have a ton of exp., but I haven't had a problem getting rid of homes in this price range.